Former Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's Blog

Picking Up the Savings

October 19, 2009 12:36 PM

The proposal in my operating budget to go to every-other-week large item pickup has some pretty significant environmental advantages. It will save over 5,000 gallons of fuel, and that translates to 65 tons of carbon dioxide not put into our air every year. How much is that?

It's 15 times more savings than the city's average solar installation.

It's over twice the savings of our average large building lighting upgrade.

It's over 150% of the savings from all of the solar hot waters heaters at our fire stations combined.

It's more than the savings from the replacement of the HVAC systems at the North Police Station, which was the city's worst energy waster.

We have a program called The Natural Step in which we look for all kinds of practical ideas all over city government that can reduce our carbon footprint as well as meet other environmental goals. Cutting in half the number of times big city trucks need to travel down 750 miles of city streets is one of the single most effective things we can do in that effort. And it's supported by over 77% of our customers. Picking up large items every other week is clearly a step in the right direction.